Streetview's inordinate interest in Cambodia
Streetview's inordinate interest in Cambodia
(I think 88% of global population, and 104% of forum readers, are very familiar with StreetView, but I wrote the following few sentences first, so bear with me. (Otherwise Alexandra will lack meat for accusing me of High Horsism))
StreetView, especially when accessed though GoogleEarth, is an extraordinary exploratory tool. GoogleEarth easily lets you cruise the WHOLE planet* from the air, spying places and patterns that tickle your fancy and entice you lower for a closer look. StreetView, steps down to human scale.
USA got StreetView first, but little Cambodia wasn't far behind, and not only Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Siem Reap (including for a long, long time now, an astounding range of paths around, up, and through most ancient temples), but tons of other spots around the country too.
For example, on a friends Facebook 6 months ago I noticed, young Khmer started posting beautiful camping pictures and one shot stuck in my mind. It was perhaps fifteen youth sitting up above on a grey rock monolith waving down at the photographer. Shit, I thought, that looks like a popular shot upper middle-class Kula Lumpur folk want on their instagram feed, but they need to hike to 4,000m on Mt. Kinabalu to get it. Where in the hell, I thought, is that place in Cambodia??
Then, a couple months later, thinking about my (High Horse) moto thread and my first Death Highway ride (before I bought that too slow and heavy purple Baja off my ride mate that I later happily got rid of to KIR.), I was looking for other closer to the border trails linking Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri and saw a grey bump. I don't know why, but I toggled, the Steetview man and blue lines lit up on the rock. I dropped in and confirmed it, that is the exact spot the picture was taken.
So, two questions:
1, Why the inordinate Google interest in Cambodia?
2, Anyone know contact details of who in Cambodia (or the region?) is managing StreetView inputs for the country?
*Whole Planet, the moon, Mars
StreetView, especially when accessed though GoogleEarth, is an extraordinary exploratory tool. GoogleEarth easily lets you cruise the WHOLE planet* from the air, spying places and patterns that tickle your fancy and entice you lower for a closer look. StreetView, steps down to human scale.
USA got StreetView first, but little Cambodia wasn't far behind, and not only Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Siem Reap (including for a long, long time now, an astounding range of paths around, up, and through most ancient temples), but tons of other spots around the country too.
For example, on a friends Facebook 6 months ago I noticed, young Khmer started posting beautiful camping pictures and one shot stuck in my mind. It was perhaps fifteen youth sitting up above on a grey rock monolith waving down at the photographer. Shit, I thought, that looks like a popular shot upper middle-class Kula Lumpur folk want on their instagram feed, but they need to hike to 4,000m on Mt. Kinabalu to get it. Where in the hell, I thought, is that place in Cambodia??
Then, a couple months later, thinking about my (High Horse) moto thread and my first Death Highway ride (before I bought that too slow and heavy purple Baja off my ride mate that I later happily got rid of to KIR.), I was looking for other closer to the border trails linking Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri and saw a grey bump. I don't know why, but I toggled, the Steetview man and blue lines lit up on the rock. I dropped in and confirmed it, that is the exact spot the picture was taken.
So, two questions:
1, Why the inordinate Google interest in Cambodia?
2, Anyone know contact details of who in Cambodia (or the region?) is managing StreetView inputs for the country?
*Whole Planet, the moon, Mars
Its for contactless tourism until we got this virus on the ropes.
Google was advertising for mobile 3d camera operators.
Google was advertising for mobile 3d camera operators.
- Lucky Lucan
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I like Google Earth Pro a lot, especially the history slider. However the street view is mostly from 2012-2013, so it's interesting to see what was around then. I noticed when I look at some other cities around the world the street view has had a few updates you can choose from.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Indeed. Google haven’t been to most places (if any) since 2012/13, and never in Vietnam for some reason.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
Here?Guest999 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:21 am
Then, a couple months later, thinking about my (High Horse) moto thread and my first Death Highway ride (before I bought that too slow and heavy purple Baja off my ride mate that I later happily got rid of to KIR.), I was looking for other closer to the border trails linking Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri and saw a grey bump. I don't know why, but I toggled, the Steetview man and blue lines lit up on the rock. I dropped in and confirmed it, that is the exact spot the picture was taken.
Interest in Google by Cambodians, or interest in Cambodians by Google?
So, two questions:
1, Why the inordinate Google interest in Cambodia?
Anyone can add a photo to Google maps. Here's how. If your phone does photospheres, google will show it in the 'streetview' UI.2, Anyone know contact details of who in Cambodia (or the region?) is managing StreetView inputs for the country?
*Whole Planet, the moon, Mars
Similarly, anyone can contribute to streetview with the right capture gear.
Mapillary is a crowd-sourced streetview alternative, recently acquired by Facebook
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Streetview update program was planned for this year, but postponed due to COVID. They will use contractors this time rather than their own kit, mostly for to advances and low price of 360 degree cameras now.
There’s a local PP company who do the streetview for Google but I forgot their name.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
- ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ
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I should get on that.
Stick a camera and gps on half a dozen etjai carts and the whole city will be covered in 3 days.
Stick a camera and gps on half a dozen etjai carts and the whole city will be covered in 3 days.
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Epidemiks,
Yes, that is the spot. Thanks. The picture I remembered showed only the rock, the sky, and the group of Khmer youth.
Yes, my sentence was ambiguous. I meant that google had a lot of street view coverage of Cambodia, shot by car, boat and backpack, years before they had such full coverage in many countries. I would have thought they would have focused on rich countries first, but perhaps they saw Cambodia as a friendly country with casual laws where they would be unlikely to be sued? (E.G. It was a few years before they blurred faces and vehicle licence plates here.)
THANKS for your links. I'll check them out. (A street I'm interested used to have StreetView, but about 3 years ago the link 'broke'. The street still shows a blue line when viewed from above, but placing the streetView icon there takes you to a tiny, mud, back alleyway that parallels it. I posted the problem to google, but no correction yet. If baa is correct that a full new set of Cambodia StreetView data is due to be collected in the not distant future, I hope the street on the map is the street they link to.)
Smelly Farts, you are certainly correct that etjai get EVERYWHERE, city and countryside. Unfortunately, maybe 2002(?) one opened beside me and I stayed another 4 years (in a totally BRILLIANT, huge, colonial villa for dirt cheap rent). They might have made more money from beer cans and war junk, but they also har a roaring trade in wild animals: snakes, monitor lizards, pangolin, owls and other birds.
Sorry, haven't searched K440 to see if it exists already, but if not, nice to have a Forum thread listing a set of map or Google Earth links to interesting Cambodia places.
Yes, that is the spot. Thanks. The picture I remembered showed only the rock, the sky, and the group of Khmer youth.
Yes, my sentence was ambiguous. I meant that google had a lot of street view coverage of Cambodia, shot by car, boat and backpack, years before they had such full coverage in many countries. I would have thought they would have focused on rich countries first, but perhaps they saw Cambodia as a friendly country with casual laws where they would be unlikely to be sued? (E.G. It was a few years before they blurred faces and vehicle licence plates here.)
THANKS for your links. I'll check them out. (A street I'm interested used to have StreetView, but about 3 years ago the link 'broke'. The street still shows a blue line when viewed from above, but placing the streetView icon there takes you to a tiny, mud, back alleyway that parallels it. I posted the problem to google, but no correction yet. If baa is correct that a full new set of Cambodia StreetView data is due to be collected in the not distant future, I hope the street on the map is the street they link to.)
Smelly Farts, you are certainly correct that etjai get EVERYWHERE, city and countryside. Unfortunately, maybe 2002(?) one opened beside me and I stayed another 4 years (in a totally BRILLIANT, huge, colonial villa for dirt cheap rent). They might have made more money from beer cans and war junk, but they also har a roaring trade in wild animals: snakes, monitor lizards, pangolin, owls and other birds.
Sorry, haven't searched K440 to see if it exists already, but if not, nice to have a Forum thread listing a set of map or Google Earth links to interesting Cambodia places.
Some countries like Germany have banned street view, Vietnam might have done the same.
None but ourselves can free our mind.
- Lucky Lucan
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I don't remember ever seeing a street view in Cambodia without blurred faces. I'm pretty sure the faces were always blurred out.Guest999 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:03 am(E.G. It was a few years before they blurred faces and vehicle licence plates here.)
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Google started blurring faces in 2008, well before streetview was available here, afaik.Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:17 amI don't remember ever seeing a street view in Cambodia without blurred faces. I'm pretty sure the faces were always blurred out.Guest999 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:03 am(E.G. It was a few years before they blurred faces and vehicle licence plates here.)
Google didn’t start blurring faces in Cambodia until long after launch, sometime after 2015.
I found myself on streetview in Russian market soon after they first put the market on streetview. I know it was me, as my face most definitely was not blurred out. It did explain why I nearly got run over by a motodup with a camera inside the market a few weeks before that.Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:17 amI don't remember ever seeing a street view in Cambodia without blurred faces. I'm pretty sure the faces were always blurred out.
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